This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order
presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution
to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about
permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

25,000 march in Toronto's Labour Day parade

Long gone are the days when children worked in Toronto’s factories; when workers toiling 60 hours a week wouldn’t cause anyone to bat an eyelash; when a nine-hour workday was considered an improvement.

The working conditions that sparked Toronto’s first Labour Day Parade back in 1872 are a distant memory now, but as an estimated 25,000 union members and supporters made their way down Queen St. W. on Monday morning for the annual event, leaders said unions are just as important to the workforce today as they’ve ever been.

“Despite all the naysayers (who suggest) that unions are in the past, I think we’ve proven over and over again that we’re relevant,” CUPE national president Mark Hancock told the Star just before the parade started marching west on Queen St. W. from University Ave.

“It’s getting harder and harder for workers, whether you’re with a union or outside a union to get full-time work, to get full-time hours, to get jobs with benefits and a pension ... So those are the types of things that unions are trying to look out for, as well as other issues like issues of quality, issues of privatization.”

Part celebration, part political statement, the lively, kilometres-long parade featured floats carrying steel pan bands and DJs, bagpipe brigades, service vehicles both historical and new (Toronto paramedics brought out a hearse-style ride from the ’70s) and participants carrying signs and banners that both lauding workers and unions and drew attention to issues such as minimum wage, equal pay and workforce cutbacks.

According to organizers, the Toronto parade is among the largest Labour Day parades in North America.

In a statement, Premier Kathleen Wynne said the statutory holiday was “an opportunity to celebrate the rights that every worker deserves — and to pay tribute to the pioneers of the labour movement and the hard-working people who help keep our province going every day.”

The parade itself is also a chance to recognize and celebrate what unions have done “for everyone, not just for union members,” said Parkdale-High Park MPP Cheri DiNovo, who was handing out stickers and cheering on parade-goers as they turned to head south on Dufferin St. towards the CNE.

“It’s unions that gave us the weekend, it’s unions that gave us … the sort-of eight-hour day, it’s unions that really fought for women’s rights, for LGBTQ rights. Unions have been at the forefront of all the civil rights struggles we’ve had,” DiNovo said.

“(Unions) are more relevant than they’ve ever been — when we’ve got young people who can’t find a job and precarious and part-time work is the only work you can get … then you know that we need unions, because unions actually equate to the middle class. Without any unions, no middle class.”

Kimberly Gow, co-chair for the Joint Health and Safety Committee for Unifor 1701, agreed. Members of Unifor, Canada’s largest private-sector union, made up a significant portion of the parade, a sea of red t-shirts and trucks carrying live six-piece bands dominating the tail end of the procession.

Get more of what matters in your inbox

Start your morning with everything you need to know, and nothing you don't. Sign up for First Up, the Star's new daily email newsletter.

Although workers are better off than in the past, Gow said, things can and should still be better today.

“We have to continue the momentum,” she said as her local made its way under the Dufferin Gate arch.

“If you stop the fight, you lose the cause.”

Correction, September 6, 2016: A photo caption in this article has been modified from a previous version that incorrectly identified the IBEW local 353 electrical workers marching in the Labour Day Parade.

More from The Star & Partners

More News

Top Stories

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All
rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is
expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto
Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of
Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com